Application of 6 Sigma method in purchasing process

Nowadays, most of the companies are deal with the competitive environment in markets. Especially, different types of the products are presented to customer. Therefore, loyalty and satisfaction is being more critical concept for the companies. Especially, most of the companies try to improve their product quality, services, process and total profitability. Therefore, most of the companies apply different improvement methodologies such as 6 Sigma, CMMI etc. with these improvement methodologies, companies increase their value added activities and create new products or services which are meet the requirements of the customer. 6 Sigma is a one of the important techniques for process improvement and most important subject of the quality management. This methodology is used in the different type of the industries in the world. Since, 6 Sigma methodologies analyze the root cause of the quality problems and eliminate the defects and variance of the outcomes. In six sigma methodology, statistical tools and techniques are used so, improvements can be measured. With this specification, 6 Sigma is a perfect tool to observe continuous improvements in the companies. Six sigma methodologies have unique organizational structure, six sigma projects are made by the teams and each member of the team has specific roles in the six sigma organizational structure (master black belt, black belt, green belt etc.). In six sigma methodologies two methods are generally used. One of these methods is called DMAIC (Define Measure Analyze Improve Control) and second one is called DFSS (Design for Six Sigma). DMAIC method is most widely known and applied model in six sigma methodology. In this study, DMAIC method main steps and details are explained. In this paper, different sector six sigma applications are researched and some of the real six sigma cases are represented. According to given real case in the paper, defense industry six sigma applications are analyzed. Especially, improvement areas in the purchasing process of the companies were analyzed. All of these researches help us to understand main characteristic of the industry and implementation of the six sigma projects. Consequently, this paper presents case study illustrating the effective use of Six Sigma to implement improvements about their problem in purchasing process. It describes in detail how the problem was defined and how the Six Sigma methodology was applied. It also shows how various tools and techniques within the Six Sigma methodology have been used.